The invention relates to a multifunctional hard material coating of a substrate which hard material coating comprises a single-phase crystalline structure.
Hard materials are divided into metallic, covalent or ionic hard materials. Each of these three hard material groups has specific advantages and disadvantages. The metallic hard materials such as the transition metal nitrides and the transition metal carbides are generally the hard materials with the highest toughness and the best attachment capability to a metallic substrate. The covalent hard materials such as diamond, cubic boron nitride, boron carbide, silicon carbide or aluminum nitride excel with regard to all the other hard materials by their high hardness and heat hardness. The oxidic hard materials to which also silicon oxide belongs have the best chemical stability and the lowest tendencies for surface reactions or interactions.
It is the object of the present invention to provide a hard material coating which has the advantages of metallic and ionic hard metal coatings.